Affiliate Marketing
How affiliate marketing works
Within this example a 'merchant' is an online retailer with a transactional website where you can buy products or services. An 'affiliate' is an online publisher or partner who has access to traffic.
Affiliates are traditionally website owners who can send traffic, via links to your site. They do this on the basis that any sales generated from this traffic will earn them an agreed commission. This reward model is commonly known as Cost Per Action (CPA) and is more transparent and accountable than the older Cost Per Click (CPC) model.
There are many different affiliate types to work with and these relationships are facilitated by a merchant joining the network and using the promotion tools available. In every case the affiliate takes the risk of sending you traffic at no cost to you as you only have to reward them if their traffic completes a purchase.
- A consumer visits an affiliate's website (for example a shopping portal or directory)
- The customer finds a product (or retailer) and clicks the link to be taken to the merchant's site to review or purchase (this click-through stores a network cookie on their PC). *
- The customer completes the sale online. Tracking software records the key purchase data such as sale amount, IP, date and time, etc and reports this to Affiliate Window. The customer journey has now concluded.
- The merchant is able to allow a period of 'grace' to consider the sale complete and pays commission due to the affiliate for sales generated.
For more information on affiliate marketing, please visit Commission Monster
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